Complete Backup

[R. McCarty]

Just an option, I did state it's limitations. Not everyone is comfortable
opening a PC and making physical changes. Some new PCs are so
compact/structured that even adding a 3.25" drive takes a good bit
of work to get access. Also connecting a Floppy cable is not always
easy to reach or do without reversing the connector. But I would go
for an internal just as you stated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Just an option, I did state it's limitations.

OK. Understood.

Not everyone is
comfortable opening a PC and making physical changes.

True. But installing a floppy in a desktop is usually one of the easiest
things you can do inside a cse. It takes four screws and plugging in two
cables. No jumpers, no drivers to install, etc.

Some new PCs
are so compact/structured that even adding a 3.25" drive takes a good
bit of work to get access. Also connecting a Floppy cable is not always
easy to reach or do without reversing the connector.

I've never run into a problem, but I'll take your word for it.

 

[Alias]

R. McCarty wrote:




OK. Understood.






True. But installing a floppy in a desktop is usually one of the easiest
things you can do inside a cse. It takes four screws and plugging in two
cables. No jumpers, no drivers to install, etc.

Eight screws. You gotta take the two sides off the case to access it ;-)

Alias

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Eight screws. You gotta take the two sides off the case to access it
;-)

LOL! But it depends on the case. Some have more than four, some have fewer.
My case, for example, opens with no screws at all.

Also you normally have to take only one side off.

 

[R. McCarty]

How do you lock down/mount the other side of the floppy drive
by only opening one side of the case ? Or are you using case(s)
with 3.25" mounting rails ?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

How do you lock down/mount the other side of the floppy drive
by only opening one side of the case ? Or are you using case(s)
with 3.25" mounting rails ?

Sorry. Of course you and Alias are right. Both sides of the case have to
opened to mount a drive. My mistake. For some reason, although I was writing
about mounting a drive, I was thinking about doing things like inserting
add-in cards.

 

[Box134]

That varies. I have a Lian Li case and I can remove a few thumbwheel screws
and slide the whole 3.5" drive cage out the front. Both sides available and
easy to work with.

 

[Anna]

(THE ISSUE INVOLVED IS MOUNTING A FLOPPY DISK DRIVE IN A DESKTOP COMPUTER
CASE)

Sorry. Of course you and Alias are right. Both sides of the case have to
opened to mount a drive. My mistake. For some reason, although I was
writing about mounting a drive, I was thinking about doing things like
inserting add-in cards.

Mr. McCarty & Ken:
Actually there are a number of desktop computer cases manufactured where one
can install a floppy disk drive (and even 5 1/4" components, e.g., optical
drives) without removing the right-side panel of the computer case. In most
of these cases (at least the ones I've come across) the device is first
fitted with a special "shoulder screw" on each side and then the device
simply slides into the receiving bay where it "catches" into a spring type
of slot and (presumably) is held secure. To remove the device you simply
lift the spring gizmo available on the left side of the bay and slide it
out. But there are other contraptions as well on desktop computer cases
where one can mount a 3 1/2" or 5 1/4" device without removing the ride side
panel.
Anna

 

[Plato]

*Now* you tell me! I just got a new computer, and I foolishly ordered mine
without *any* hydraulic systems.

Then you got a plane, not a jet

 

[Steve Hawkins]

It's a real nuisance not having a boot (trunk) light in my friend's Nissan
Micra (buyer beware!). The 'overhead' light is crap and in the wrong place
too.

Now what about that complete back up?

Christmas is coming: what is the best buy for backing up one's entire system
and personal files?

Lots of us (I'm sure) would like to know.

Regards,
SteveH

 

[Anna]

It's a real nuisance not having a boot (trunk) light in my friend's Nissan
Micra (buyer beware!). The 'overhead' light is crap and in the wrong
place too.

Now what about that complete back up?

Christmas is coming: what is the best buy for backing up one's entire
system and personal files?

Lots of us (I'm sure) would like to know.

Regards,
SteveH

Steve:
This thread (like so many that have gone before and so many that have yet to
come)has taken a number of twists & turns since Marilyn's (I believe she was
the OP) original query re a backing up strategy. While her query generated a
considerable number of responses, I can't recall whether they ultimately
satisfied her objective. Apparently it didn't satisfy yours.

When you inquire about a "complete backup", could you flesh that out? Are
you primarily or exclusively concerned with backing up the entire contents
of your day-to-day working HD, including the operating system and all
programs & data? In other words, are you interested in creating a "clone" of
your working HD so that in the event you needed to restore that drive should
it become dysfunctional because of system files corruption or other
problems, you could use the "cloned" HD to accomplish this? Are you familiar
with disk imaging programs such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True
Image which have this disk cloning capability?

Or are you simply interested in backing up the data files you have created?
In which case there are myriad backup programs out there that will
accomplish this.

As you can probably guess from my above comments, I am a strong advocate of
using a disk imaging program to clone the contents of one's HD to another HD
in order to create & maintain an effective backup strategy. Using primarily
the Norton Ghost 2003 program and occasionally the Acronis program, I find
those programs relatively easy to use in a routine manner and quite
effective in maintaining a comprehensive backup system. What we are talking
about here is basic disk-to-disk cloning.

There's a huge amount of information on the net re backup strategies. A
Google search will keep you occupied for many moons. And of course you can
get help from newsgroups such as this one. But please be specific & detailed
re your objectives so that you can get meaningful responses.
Anna

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Now what about that complete back up?

Christmas is coming: what is the best buy for backing up one's entire
system and personal files?

Lots of us (I'm sure) would like to know.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept in
the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the life of
your business depends on your data) you should have multiple generations of
backup, and at least one of those generations should be stored off-site.

My computer isn't used for business, but my personal backup scheme uses two
identical removable hard drives,I alternate between the two, and use Drive
Image to make a complete copy of the primary drive.

 

[Trent©]

How do you lock down/mount the other side of the floppy drive
by only opening one side of the case ? Or are you using case(s)
with 3.25" mounting rails ?

There's a myriad of case designs.

On some cases...the hard drives and floppy drives mount on a
compartment that swings out to you...then comes out of the case. You
only need the one side removed to replace or add drives to these
cases.

Also, the $50 extra charge talked about before may be because the case
may now need to be switched with a case that has a floppy bay. And
the mainboard may now need to be switched for a mb that has a floppy
controller. Not all boards have a floppy controller.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

 

[Steve Hawkins]

(I thought I replied to this yesterday - must have pressed the wrong key...
sorry.)

Hi Anna,

Yes, I should think I would be in the market for a clone. I just want to
hit a button and have a
completely runable system and all my data files saved that I can then keep
away from my pc for safe
keeping between updates. I can get separate portable hard drives for
storing just the personal
files, but I would like to be easily able to recreate the whole caboodle
following some catastrophe
such as a fire (God forbid!).

It is the overwhelming amount of reading generated by Google searches that
has prevented me (rather
uncomfortably) from acting on this before now, so I thought perhaps these
expert columns might be a
better bet. It sounds like you have the right idea with your Norton Ghost
and Acronis True Image
(but why do you need two, and what do you mean by 'quite effective'?).

So the question now becomes: what is the best programme/hardware/regime for
cloning a pc - and at
what price?

Thanks again,

SteveH

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anna" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Complete Backup

It's a real nuisance not having a boot (trunk) light in my friend's Nissan
Micra (buyer beware!). The 'overhead' light is crap and in the wrong
place too.

Now what about that complete back up?

Christmas is coming: what is the best buy for backing up one's entire
system and personal files?

Lots of us (I'm sure) would like to know.

Regards,
SteveH

Steve:
This thread (like so many that have gone before and so many that have yet to
come)has taken a number of twists & turns since Marilyn's (I believe she was
the OP) original query re a backing up strategy. While her query generated a
considerable number of responses, I can't recall whether they ultimately
satisfied her objective. Apparently it didn't satisfy yours.

When you inquire about a "complete backup", could you flesh that out? Are
you primarily or exclusively concerned with backing up the entire contents
of your day-to-day working HD, including the operating system and all
programs & data? In other words, are you interested in creating a "clone" of
your working HD so that in the event you needed to restore that drive should
it become dysfunctional because of system files corruption or other
problems, you could use the "cloned" HD to accomplish this? Are you familiar
with disk imaging programs such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True
Image which have this disk cloning capability?

Or are you simply interested in backing up the data files you have created?
In which case there are myriad backup programs out there that will
accomplish this.

As you can probably guess from my above comments, I am a strong advocate of
using a disk imaging program to clone the contents of one's HD to another HD
in order to create & maintain an effective backup strategy. Using primarily
the Norton Ghost 2003 program and occasionally the Acronis program, I find
those programs relatively easy to use in a routine manner and quite
effective in maintaining a comprehensive backup system. What we are talking
about here is basic disk-to-disk cloning.

There's a huge amount of information on the net re backup strategies. A
Google search will keep you occupied for many moons. And of course you can
get help from newsgroups such as this one. But please be specific & detailed
re your objectives so that you can get meaningful responses.
Anna

 

[Anna]

(I thought I replied to this yesterday - must have pressed the wrong
key... sorry.)

Hi Anna,

Yes, I should think I would be in the market for a clone. I just want to
hit a button and have a completely runable system and all my data files
saved that I can then keep away from my pc for safe keeping between
updates. I can get separate portable hard drives for storing just the
personal files, but I would like to be easily able to recreate the whole
caboodle following some catastrophe such as a fire (God forbid!).

It is the overwhelming amount of reading generated by Google searches that
has prevented me (rather uncomfortably) from acting on this before now, so
I thought perhaps these expert columns might be a better bet. It sounds
like you have the right idea with your Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image
(but why do you need two, and what do you mean by 'quite effective'?).

So the question now becomes: what is the best programme/hardware/regime
for cloning a pc - and at what price?

Thanks again,

SteveH

Steve:
In my view, the enormous advantage of a disk imaging program such as the
Symantec's Norton Ghost program is that it creates an exact copy of your
day-to-day working hard drive including your operating system and installed
programs together will all your created files. So if & when the time comes
when you need to restore your system you have at hand a "clone" of that
drive allowing you to become operational again with a minimum of fuss &
bother.

While it is true that backup software programs can backup the files you have
created in your various programs, they are unable to backup your operating
system and (for the most part) the programs installed on your computer. Most
computer users have invested considerable time and effort in installing
their Windows operating system and programs, customizing Windows and
configuring our applications to work the way we want them to. And we're all
aware that putting all of that back the way it was can be a difficult,
frustrating, and time-consuming effort.

So when that day comes (as it surely will!) that you need to restore your
day-to-day working hard drive because for one reason or another it has
become dysfunctional because of some miserable virus infection or other
system files corruption issue, it's a wonderful feeling to know that you
have at hand a perfectly good virus-free clone of your hard drive that can
easily restore your system once again to a functional state. Assuming your
normal working drive is non-defective hardware-wise, you can easily clone
the contents of the cloned drive back to your working drive.

And should your working drive become mechanically/electronically defective
and unusable, it's a relatively simple matter to install a new drive and
clone the contents of your previously cloned drive back to that new drive.
There's no need to partition or format the new drive; no need to install an
operating system; no need to install your programs & applications -- all
that will be taken care of automatically during the cloning process. What
could be better?

In utilizing this disk-to-disk cloning process, two hard drives are
involved - obviously your day-to-day working HD (the "source" disk), the HD
from which you'll be cloning its contents, and the drive you'll be cloning
to, i.e., your "destination" disk. The destination drive can be another
internal HD or perhaps, more suitably, a USB/Firewire external HD. The
disk-to-disk cloning process is relatively simple to undertake, reasonably
quick as it clones the contents of one drive to another drive, and most
important of all, effective in providing you with (for all practical
purposes) an exact duplicate of your working drive.

The advantage of using another internal HD as the recipient of your clone is
basically twofold - the cloning process is considerably faster as compared
with cloning to a USB/Firewire EHD, and more importantly, this internal
"destination" drive is bootable. The advantage of using an external HD is
that it makes for a more secure backup system in the sense that following
the cloning operation that drive will be ordinarily disconnected from the
computer. The basic disadvantage of the USB/Firewire EHD is that it's not
bootable. But, of course, there's no problem cloning back the contents of
that external drive (nor the cloned internal drive) to your working drive
for restoration purposes.

The program I typically use to carry out the disk cloning process that I've
described is Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 program. (While that program has
been presumably superseded by the Ghost 9 and now Ghost 10 programs, I find
the 2003 version more to my liking because of its simplicity of use and
straightforward design in undertaking basic disk-to-disk cloning). In using
the Ghost 2003 program, I prefer to use the Ghost bootable floppy disk
(easily created from the Ghost program) or the Ghost bootable CD, rather
than the program's GUI interface. This is just a personal preference on my
part. (Actually, another advantage of using the bootable Ghost floppy (or
bootable CD) is its portability aspects. You can use it on a computer where
Ghost 2003 has not been installed).

Using a Ghost bootable floppy disk (or bootable CD), the process itself is
simple. With both drives connected, you boot to the floppy (or CD). After
selecting your source & destination drives, the cloning process begins --
probably not more than a half-dozen key clicks are involved. The cloning
process proceeds without user intervention. The data transfer speed is
dependent upon the hard drives involved and your processor speed. Using a
medium to high-powered CPU and modern hard drives, you can figure on a
cloning speed (involving internal drives) of somewhere between 800 MB/min to
1.5 GB/min. Cloning to a USB/Firewire EHD (assuming USB 2.0) will be
considerably slower - perhaps 500 to 800 MB/min.

I might mention that the Ghost 2003 program is still available from a number
of online vendors. Here are some that I've recently found...
Download only - $4.99
http://www.tekdealers.com/index2.php?pg=product_details&productID=89

$7.95 Shipping?
http://www.softwarediner.com/cgi-bi...hstart=0&template=Templates/SearchResult.html

$9.54 + Shipping
http://www.tekdeal.com/cgi-bin/shop...template=PDGTemplates/Plain/SearchResult.html

$12.29 (free shipping)
http://www.atomicpark.com/xq/aspx/s...odid.21565/buy.software/qx/productdetail.html

$12.32 (free shipping)
http://www.viosoftware.com/Ghost/Gh...bizrate&utm_medium=mall&utm_campaign=10024696

$14.00 (free shipping) http://www.royaldiscount.com/ghost.html

The Acronis True Image disk imaging program is another fine program based on
my limited experience with it. It certainly garners a lot of favorable
reviews from the professional reviewers and contributors to this newsgroup.
But I just don't have the experience with that program that I have with the
Ghost 2003 program that I've been writing about.

If you (or anyone coming upon this thread) is interested in using the Ghost
2003 program along the lines I've described, I can post some detailed
step-by-step instructions for using the program.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Anna - thank you very much for your response

As I orginally said, yes, it is a complete backup of everything, in case the
drive should become dysfunctional - creating a "clone" - and thank you for
your help - will look into the Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image

marilyn

 

[Anna]

Anna - thank you very much for your response

As I orginally said, yes, it is a complete backup of everything, in case
the
drive should become dysfunctional - creating a "clone" - and thank you for
your help - will look into the Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image

marilyn

Marilyn:
I assume you saw my later response to Steve in which I provided further
details concerning the use of a disk imaging program such as Symantec's
Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to clone the contents of one hard drive
to another hard drive. Either program will do the job in most cases. I
usually work with the Ghost 2003 program as I stated in my last posting re
this subject. As I mentioned to Steve, if you (or anyone else) would like
step-by-step instructions for using that program (using a Ghost bootable
floppy disk or Ghost bootable CD), please so indicate and I'll provide them.
Anna

 

[Steve Hawkins]

Thanks Anna, for your very painstaking response/essay! If you do have even
more details I would be interested to read them - though it does not have to
be another essay!

I'm a little unfamiliar with the way these threads pan out, so, if Ken Blake
is 'still with us' I'd be interested to hear more about his Drive Image
method/alternative too.

This is all extremely useful (and what a con to include 'Backup' software in
an operating system, that does not actually allow for backing up the system
itself - anyone can keep extra copies of personal files after all!),

Regards,

SteveH

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks Anna, for your very painstaking response/essay! If you do
have even more details I would be interested to read them - though it
does not have to be another essay!

I'm a little unfamiliar with the way these threads pan out, so, if
Ken Blake is 'still with us' I'd be interested to hear more about his
Drive Image method/alternative too.

I'm still here. Drive image and Ghost used to be two different programs. But
since Symatenec bought DI, they are now a single product.

This is all extremely useful (and what a con to include 'Backup'
software in an operating system, that does not actually allow for
backing up the system itself - anyone can keep extra copies of
personal files after all!),

I don't think it's a con at all. Although, like Anna, I prefer imaging the
entire drive, not everyone does; for some people what the included backup
program does is sufficent.As with many other kinds of produts, Microsoft
includes a very limited backup program as part of Windows, but if you want
greater functionality, you need to go to a third-party product. To some
extent, this may be fear of the US Justice Department going after them with
anti-trust suits if they shut out all the competition.

 

[Anna]

(SNIP)
What is the best buy for backing up one's entire system and personal files?

Thanks Anna, for your very painstaking response/essay! If you do have
even more details I would be interested to read them - though it does not
have to be another essay!

I'm a little unfamiliar with the way these threads pan out, so, if Ken
Blake is 'still with us' I'd be interested to hear more about his Drive
Image method/alternative too.

This is all extremely useful (and what a con to include 'Backup' software
in an operating system, that does not actually allow for backing up the
system itself - anyone can keep extra copies of personal files after
all!),

Regards,

SteveH

Steve:
Understand that when I compose my "essays" as you call them I do so with the
objective of not only responding to your specific inquiry, but providing
information which I hope will prove useful
to others who are interested in the issue being discussed, in this case
determining a comprehensive backup strategy suitable to the user's needs. In
so doing I try to avoid cursory responses and attempt, as best I can, to
provide reasonably clear & detailed information that I trust will be useful
to you and others who are interested in the issue being discussed, in this
case - contemplating a backup system.

As I mentioned in my previous postings re this thread, I prefer to use the
Ghost 2003 program for the reasons given.

With that in mind, here are the detailed, step-by-step instructions for
using the Ghost 2003 program (using, as I prefer, a Ghost bootable floppy
disk or Ghost bootable CD) to clone the contents of one HD to another HD..

Creating the bootable Ghost floppy disk:
1. Install the Ghost 2003 program on your computer. Make sure you're using
the latest "build" - Ghost 2003.793. If not, use Ghost's LiveUpdate feature
to automatically download the latest version.
2. Insert a blank floppy disk (it need not be formatted) and access your
Ghost program.
3. Click on Ghost Utilities.
4. Click on Norton Ghost Boot Wizard.
5. Select Standard Ghost Boot Disk. A dialog box will appear.
a. Select the USB 2.0 Support option (assuming you have that
capability).
b. Select the Assign DOS drive letters option and click Next.
6. Select the Use PC-DOS option.
7. Complete the process following the screen prompts.
8. Remove floppy and label accordingly.

That's it. Now you have a Ghost bootable floppy disk which you can use to
undertake your cloning operations. Now when you want to clone the contents
of one HD to another HD you simply insert the Ghost bootable floppy disk in
your floppy drive and boot up with both drives connected.

After creating the Ghost bootable floppy disk, you can created a Ghost
bootable CD from it using the Roxio or Nero, or most other CD burning
programs that allow you to create a bootable CD. Unfortunately I know of no
way to *directly* create this bootable CD from the Ghost program (as you can
do in the Acronis True Image program).

Here's how to perform the cloning operation...
1. With both drives connected, boot up with the Ghost bootable floppy (or
Ghost bootable CD). You'll get an initial screen that displays "License
agreement warning". Right-arrow (or tab) over to the "Continue with marking
drives" button and press Enter.
2. The "About Norton Ghost" screen appears. Click OK.
3. Right-arrow twice over to the "To Disk" button and press Enter.
4. The next screen will list both your drives - the Drive 1 (source disk)
and Drive 2 (destination disk). MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Drive 1 IS INDEED
YOUR SOURCE DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING *FROM*!
Drive 1 will be highlighted. Press Enter.
5. The next screen will have Drive 2 (destination disk) highlighted. AGAIN,
ENSURE THAT Drive 2 IS YOUR DESTINATION DISK, I.E., THE DISK YOU'RE CLONING
*TO*! Press Enter.
6. The next screen is the "Destination Drive Details" window, and reflects
your ultimate destination disk, i.e., your current Drive 2. Press your Tab
key to highlight the OK button and press Enter.
7. The "Proceed with disk clone?" dialog box will open. Left-arrow over to
the Yes button and press Enter.
8. The cloning process will begin. The data transfer speed will vary
depending upon the speed of your processor and the HDs involved. On a medium
to high-powered system you should get transfer speeds ranging from 800
MB/min to 1.5 GB/min.should you be cloning internal drives. It will be
considerably slower if you're cloning to a USB external HD.
9. After you get the "Clone Completed Successfully" message, left-arrow over
to the Continue button and press Enter.
10. Down-arrow to Quit and press Enter.
11. Click Yes at the "Are you sure you want to quit?" message.
12. Remove the Ghost floppy and shut down the computer.
13. Disconnect your source disk and boot up with the cloned drive.
Presumably it should boot up without a problem and in about 40 to 50 seconds
following arriving at your Desktop, XP's "System Settings Change" window
will (usually) appear, informing you that new hardware has been found and
asks "Do you want to restart your computer now?" Click Yes.
14. BTW, the reboot of the newly-cloned drive usually takes a longer time
than usual, so one must be patient. On rare occasions the system will fail
to reboot - the system will hang before reaching the Windows XP Welcome
screen. It's a rare occurrence, but you may experience it from time-to-time.
If that does occur, simply use the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys to reboot.

Assuming you've cloned the contents of your working drive to your second
internal drive, that second drive will be bootable (after disconnecting your
primary one, of course) as indicated above. You also have the option of
cloning your working drive to a USB external hard drive. In that case the
USB EHD is *not* bootable, but you could clone the contents back to your
internal drive for restoration purposes should the need arise.

Just one other point I want to emphasize with respect to the cloning
operation involving internal drives. After the cloning operation and the
shutdown of your machine, disconnect your source drive and boot ONLY to the
newly-cloned drive (as indicated in step 13. above). DO NOT BOOT IMMEDIATELY
FOLLOWING THE CLONING OPERATION WITH BOTH DRIVES CONNECTED. Doing so is
likely to cause future boot problems with the cloned drive. Obviously there
is no problem in this area should a USBEHD be involved in the cloning
process since that device is not bootable in an XP environment.

As to the Drive Image program that Ken Blake uses for the same purpose -
it's been a long time since I've used that program so I'm no longer familiar
with it in terms of its capability for disk-to-disk cloning. Perhaps Ken
will comment further.

I trust the above will be of use to you and others who might be thinking
about using the Ghost 2003 program for a routine backup system.
Anna